Cecilia
by Cinnamon1
Summary: A story from Cecilia's point of view. Who is Cecilia you ask? Char's sister, (REMEMBER???) Anyway, please read and review... CHAPTER 2 IS NOW UP!!!!!
1. Waylaid

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(A/N Disclaimer: This is a fan fic. That means I'm not the real owner of these people. If you don't recognize it, it's probably mine, other wise it belongs to Gail Carson Levine. Anyway, not much is known about Cecilia, so I decided to right a fic about her. Please REVIEW!!!!)

I always considered myself the lucky one. I got all the fame, fortune, and fun without the work. My brother did the work of course, but he still thought he got the better end of the deal, probably because he was higher up on the food chain, and had more power and fun (not that my life was a bore.) The good thing about this was that he completely adored me. (Now don't get me wrong. I completely adored him too, and I didn't use him and his power because he was crown prince.) That's right, crown prince. That of course made me the second in line for the throne, unless he got married and had a child of his own. And that's exactly what he did. He made quite the scene over it too. (His wife had quite the sob story if you were into that sort of thing. I wasn't, and she didn't ever tell it because she wasn't the type to sit and mope either.)

Now about a year or two after he went and got hitched, our father, His Royal Majesty, King Jerrold, went and kicked the can making my brother, Prince Charmont, the new king of Kyrria. His death didn't matter much to me though. Of course I missed him. He was my father, even if I only saw him once or twice a day, and when I did see him, it was only for a minute. 

So anyway, the worry of taking of the country if my brother died was now out of my mind. If my brother would have abdicated the throne, I don't think I could have taken over the country. I had been taught since the day I was born that I was second in line. He would get the throne, then his son, and his son's son. I didn't have to learn to rule a country. It would be easier just to give the throne to the Prime Minister. The lineage of the throne was protected though. His wife, Ella, had already delivered the new Crown Prince, Edward, and unless she had been eating a lot more lately, she was definitely pregnant again. 

A week later her pregnancy was announced at a Royal Ball. I was proclaimed the soon to be caretaker of the child, as I was of Edward. (Of course, this doesn't mean that I would be the caretaker. It simply means that if anything happened to my brother and his wife, I would take care of their children, and help Edward rule the country, until they were old enough to make correct decisions on their own.) This is where my tale takes us now.

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"Cecilia, wait up for me!" my brother called from behind me. Not Char as you might think. It was Edmund, my youngest brother, only of age seven.

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(A/N on page 84, Char writes a letter to his father saying that he is well, and so are his mother, sister, and brothers. I decided to include that fact in my stories. I'm also assuming that Ella was sixteen when she married Char, making Char eighteen since he was two years older then her, and also putting Cecilia at sixteen since Char was two years older then her too. Now that it has been two years, Ella is eighteen, Char is twenty, and Cecilia is supposed to be eighteen. I decided I wanted her seventeen in this story though. So just pretend she's supposed to be seventeen…)

"Yes, Dear?" I asked patiently. I always tried to be sweet with this brother of mine. He was sort of an accident. He was by far the youngest of the four of us Royal children, born ten years after James was, and hadn't had as many playmates as the rest of us did. Not because he was hard to like though. Char, James, and I always had our own friends, each other, and each other's friends since we were so close in age. Edmund didn't.

"James said that you would take me to see the Royal Gardens today since he is out sporting with his friends," he said sweetly, his innocent baby face looking up at me. He was still a little chubby from being a baby, not to mention the fact that he was spoiled rotten with candy from his nurses.

"I would love to take you, sweet, but I have to attended to other matters." I said. I didn't really have much else to do, but I had already been to the Royal Gardens three times that week, and frankly, I was sick of them.

"Please?" he asked, starting to take on a whiny tone in his voice that annoyed me to bits.

"Fine," I sighed, giving in. I really hated giving in.

We made our way down to the Gardens with out any real incidents that I should bother mentioning, (there _was_ a little incident involving two scullery maids, and white cake, and us running through the halls, but that doesn't pertain to this.)

My brother immediately headed towards the fountain to sail his boat. It's the only reason he ever came down to the gardens; he never came for the beauty of the flowers like I did. Don't get me wrong, I spent most of my childhood splashing in the fountain, but my tastes had matured as I had.

I chose a stone bench near the fountain where I could still keep an eye on him, but enjoy the beauty of the rose bushes across the walk. I sat there waiting for Edmund to get bored or end up sinking his ship. I hadn't waited long when he came bounding over to me disturbing my peace in progress.

"We can go to the Menagerie, too right?" he asked hopeful, "I want to see the aminals."

"Sure thing hon," I said, deciding a walk outside of the palace grounds would be pleasant. "And by the way, they're animals, not aminals."

"That's what I said, aminals."

"Of course dear," I said humoring him. I didn't want to bother tonight. The sky was crystal clear and promising a good sunset. I could watch it while he chased after the centaurs and tried to get close enough to one for a ride.

Learning from experience, I took one of Edmund's nurses with us. Not only did he posses the ability to escape my grasp, but he often got tired and wanted to go to the palace, or would pester be relentlessly by trying to bed sweets off of me.

The sun was barely have down when Edmund got tired and wanted to back home as I had predicted. He took his nurse with him. I was now all alone. Since I was no longer prominently in line for the throne, I didn't have a personal guard. There were tons of guards posted around the area anyway. And it wasn't like they ever didn't go with me anyway. I always had a guard or two trailing me.

The sun slowly crept below the horizon. It was definently the prettiest sunset I had ever seen. Sort of. All sunsets here were beautiful. That's why the castles were built here in the first place. My Great-Great-Great-Grandmother had a thing for sunsets. While she was traveling through this little town of Frell, she saw the sunset and never wanted to leave. Her husband, (my Great-Great-Great-Grandfather) couldn't resist her, so he ordered a castle to be built here. The Royal family spent their time here ever since.

Once the sun had set, and twilight had past, I decided to head back. The guards were already lighting torches and preparing for the Changing of the Guard. I was heading back when a poultry cart drove in front of me, cutting me off, and splashing my gown with mud. 

"Renegade Chicken People," I muttered to my self as I tried my best to wipe off my gown with a handkerchief. I ended up smearing it more. I tried to cross the busy street, but found all the merchants and traders clogging the road. I opted for a short cut. I turned around and wove through the people rushing home to their little lives. With mud staining my gown, most of the people didn't recognize me as their sovereign. I cut through side streets trying to keep the castle in view. Somehow, in the midst of the 'rush hour' I got completely lost. I was stuck in the middle of a strange community of houses and having no where to go.

"Miss?" a voice said from behind me.

I whirled around, praying it was someone who could help me back to the castle, or at least point me in the right direction. In the worst case scenario, it was a pickpocket or a thief who would hinder me even more. Fortunately, luck was on my side. He was a palace guard.

"Miss?" he said again, "I do believe His Majesty the King would not appreciate his sister wandering around town in the middle of the night."

"Yes, sir." I said, feeling the fool. I decided I would work on my direction skill when I got back to the castle, (after I had a good long soak in a bath, of course.) We took up course in walking towards the palace, or at least the direction he pointed us in. I was started to wonder what exactly he had been doing all the way out here. I decided to use subtly and tact to figure out why.

"Why were you out here?" I asked bluntly. I never was one for subtly and tact. "Aren't you supposed to be at the palace?"

He simply grinned at this.

"Now why are you smiling?" I demanded. He was staring to get on my nerves. What if he wasn't really trying to help me? What if this was all some evil ploy? I considered taking off in the other direction as fast as I could, but I decided that wasn't the best idea. If he really _was_ a palace guard, then I could get home by sticking with him. If he wasn't I would still be someplace other then a strange part of town lost, alone, and rather cold now that the sun had gone down, and that seemed better then this.

"Yes," he said, "I _am_ supposed to be at the palace, but I'm seem to spend more time chasing silly girls all around town."

I blushed at this. The guards _did_ follow me where I went, and they _were_ supposed to help if I ever needed anything, but his ridicule was a bit much. My reaction to his comment simply made his grin widen.

The silence gave me a perfect chance to study my companion. He was young; probably the age of my eldest brother, Char, and like Char he had rather swarthy skin, more then likely from spending his days in the sun. His chestnut eyes match his hair perfectly, giving him a cabalistic and comely look. He still had a smile on his face; it was as though he never went with out one.

I had never been one to go long with out talking, and the silence between us was starting to get awkward.

"So," I began, trying to fall into conversation with him, "How'd you get into being a castle guard?"

"My father wanted me to be a knight. My mother didn't. Somehow, they compromised on palace guard. What my mother doesn't know is I'm in training to be a knight. Knights have to serve as a palace guard for two years before they're allowed to finish training as a knight." He said.

Our kingdom was small enough that there weren't enough nobles that wanted to be knighted, so we let all men, rich enough to pay the training and such, try to become a knight. That was no easy task. I knew from my older brother, (who _never_ stopped talking about knights and fighting, and swords) that being a guard took money to become one. Think of all the equipment and the horses, lodging, and training. 

Once you got past the financial part there was still the actual training part. Many, many, knights had died in training. Others were crippled, and some just couldn't keep up with all of the work. Then there was the knowledge part. They studied everything. From battles, to healing, they cover it. Once you make it through this, you become a castle guard. If you do well during your two-year term, you are sort-of a knight in training. You travel around doing knightly sort of things. Once you do something real good, like slaying and ogre, you finally get knighted. Let me say again, it is no easy task.

"So," I continue, "Is it living up to your expectations?"

"Being a guard? Or training for a knight?" he asked, his eyes glancing at me before looking back to the path we were on.

"Both." I replied. The castle still wasn't in sight. I probably had a while for conversation.

"Well," he began, his grin coming back, "I didn't know I would be about the city like I am-"

"It's not my fault!" I put in with a pouting-sort of tone. How was I supposed to know there wasn't a shortcut to the castle?

"But the training is rather hard." He finished, ignoring my last comment.

I snorted at this. He had said it like I had expected it to be the easiest thing in the world. Some men could be real egotistical at times.

"So after you become a knight, what do you plan on doing?" I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. I'll figure that out then."

"You don't know?" I repeated appalled, "You're just going to wander around without a purpose of direction? You should really figure out what you are going to do with your life. Aren't you at least going to buy a house? Or get married?" I lectured; people who never think ahead bother me.

He stopped dead, and turned to face me. "You really need to stop asking so many questions," he said sounding extremely annoyed, "And no, I do _not_ know what I'm going to do, I'll figure it out when I become a knight, of course I'm going to buy a house, and if all women are like you, then I'm not going to get married!" By the end of this sentence, he was almost yelling.

"It was just a simple question." I said quietly, turning away from him and walking towards the castle which was now very much in sight. Char and James used to always tell me I talked too much. Then they realized no matter what they said I would still talk a lot, so they refrained from saying that in the future.

"Your Highness," he said coming up behind me, "I did not mean to offend you in any way. I—I just meant that I'm still getting a hold on this whole becoming a knight thing, and I don't know where it's going to take me."

"Apology accepted, and you can call me Cecilia," I said. "Since you've already called me everything else under the sun." I added darkly.

"Your Hi- Cecilia, come off it already would you?"

"What do you mean come off of it?" I asked. Here I was bickering endlessly with a man I didn't even know the name of.

"You know what I mean," he retorted, "You're acting as though I'm an ogre!"

"Perhaps because you are acting like an ogre!" I said furiously back at him.

"No, I'm not!" he yelled back, "You're the one saying awful things about other people!"

At this time we had arrived back at the castle and were standing at the gates. I couldn't let him remember me as a total prat, I _was_ his sovereign.

"Well, I thank you for escorting me home Sir-?" I realized I didn't even know his name.

"Thomas," he replied gruffly.

"Well then I thank you Sir Thomas for bringing me back, even if you were rude and-" I stated, getting cutoff by Thomas.

"I was not rude." He said slowly through gritted teeth. "You're the ingrateful wench." He stated coldly. "And not what I would have expected from a princess. You're just a silly girl." With this he turned and walked away, leaving me at the castle gate. I turned around in a huff. 

With any luck, I would never see this Sir Thomas again. I had no luck at all.

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(A/N Yea!!! My first chapter!!!!! Please click that little button down there on the left and review. Anyway, this, being my first ever Ella fic, I don't have people to thank. L I'll live though… 

About the plot. It's NOT going to be a love/hate thing where they finally realize their love and get married and crap. Not that I'm ruling romance out though, I'm just writing so many of those right now, that I decided it would be best to add something else to the plot. You'll see what that is later… 

Once again, PLEASE REVIEW!!! I don't know how good or bad this is…)


	2. A Long and Boring Journey

Here I was, sitting in a jolting carriage heading towards Aythoria. I was almost looking forward for the part of this journey where I had to climb out of the carriage and onto a horse. It had been nearly two weeks since my encounter with Thomas, and my dreams about him had finally stopped. Something about him just stuck with me, like a bad case of the flu. Every time I would pass a knight in the halls, his mocking grin would come back to me, and I would have to duck into a nearby room to avoid flushing, and making that knight think I was sweet on them.

The same day my dreams stopped, Char announced to the Royal Court that James and I would be taking a trip to Aythoria to renew a peace treaty. It gave me quite the shock. Apparently, he had told James and he was supposed to tell me, but James often times forgets things such as that. Once when he was younger, nine in fact, we had been on a short trip to the country right out side of the city, and he had forgotten to tell us a message had been received that there would be a hunting party that day. To make a long story short, I almost lost my head to a huntsman arrow that day. I'm sure James had conveniently forgot about that little escapade too.

At first, it had been planned that Char would go with his wife to accompany him. He changed his mind because of the Queen's _delicate_ condition. He didn't want injure her or their unborn child on the journey, so he opted to sending James and I. Naturally, he didn't tell Ella this. She would have insisted upon going anyway, and that she would be fine. He simply said he was busy with the ongoing Ogre Wars. (Which was true, but his wife wasn't as naïve as he could have hoped in moments such as these, and she was a little skeptical.)

So here I was, bouncing about like a gunnysack full of potatoes, nearing the Elves' Forest, and supposedly somewhere just past the town of Jenn. My charming brother was already riding horseback. One of the joys of being born male.

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(A/N Jenn is a town mentioned in Ella Enchanted.)

I had passed near an hour of completely nothing. I decided to take out Ella's magic book. She had been kind enough to lend it to me for the journey because she knew just how tedious they could be.

I opened to a re-telling of Sleeping Beauty. Turns out the _real_ Sleeping Beauty wasn't all that good looking. Her prince was being wooed by another, prettier girl, even though he was meant for her. She couldn't bear to see him fall in love with the other girl, so she inflicted the spell upon herself. Turns out, he liked her more anyway.

I turned the page looking for anything else time consuming. Perhaps a novel would pop up. Instead of the entire works of the fairies, like I had hoped, I got a picture of Char attempting to explain to Edmund why hors d'oeuvres are for eating, not throwing mercilessly at innocent people who happened to walk by. (Edmund actually won that conversation, and even convinced Char to join in on the canapé throwing.) I flipped the page again, and much to my surprise, (and by much I mean much, I even dropped the book,) there was a picture of Thomas. 

He was on horseback with another group of guards and he was in the middle of a forest, a forest that looked oddly familiar. Where had I seen that forest before? Then it hit me. I had just passed that part of the forest. I stuck my head out of the carriage window and peeked around behind the carriage. Sure enough, Thomas, and the group of guards were there, scanning the tree line for ogres and bandits.

I was about to run through my list of complaints and reasons why this was completely unfair, when the carriage jerked to a halt.

Somebody yelled something but I couldn't quite catch what they said. The next moment the guards were surrounding my carriage. I didn't panic or anything. Lots of times this is only over a fallen tree or something.

That's just what it was. A fallen tree, except times a thousand. Turns out a group of highwaymen had come through here a couple of weeks before and knocked over a bunch of trees to make their prey easier. They had plundered the passer-biers for near two and a half weeks until they had been arrested by the sheriff, (not before they stole his stuff three times though,) and were now serving time in the dungeons. There were only about twenty trees knocked over, but it takes a while to clear a tree when most people going through simply go around the mess, without trying to get any trees off of the road.

Naturally, traveling with chivalrous knights and all, we couldn't go on until every single _twig_ had been lifted from the road as to not hinder any future travelers. Not to say that James or I would allow the caravan to continue without clearing the road; it _was_ our country we were talking about, and we _were_ trying to help it.

"Okay," James said, coming to the carriage door, "We're going to be here a while, you might as well get out." He pulled the carriage door open, stepped aside and held out his arm to help me down with. 

I never really got why that was considered chivalrous. To get out of a carriage I have to hold my skirts off the ground to avoid stepping on them and falling, _slowly _and _gracefully_ lower myself to the ground, land lightly, and still manage to be holding onto by brother's arm. Though it seems as if his arm might help in the balancing act, you can't really hold onto it, you simply must 'grace it with your presence' as one of my schoolmistresses had taught me, meaning that I could barely even touch his arm, and not help balance myself with it. Of course, my brother wouldn't have understood this, he was male and simply thought he was helping with the process, and didn't know what pains us women went through.

"Now that we are deep in the Elves' Forest, we shouldn't have too many problems with ogres," James said, walking with me to the side of the clearing, were a log that had been cleared was already laying, "In fact, we might even run into a couple of elves." He finished this with a grin. All three of my brothers seemed to have a fancy for all the exotic creatures in our lands. Char even battled ogres for a while. (Now he stayed at the palace more then actual fighting, but most ogres had been run out, so there wasn't much fighting to be done.)

"That's nice," I said sweetly, I didn't really care if I saw an elf or not, there were plenty of them at the menagerie. I sat down on the log that James had walked me to, and pulled out Ella's Fairy Tale book that I had brought with me from the carriage. 

"I'll be fine here," I told him, "I have Ella's book to keep me company." He nodded and left. We had both found out about the book when Ella first married Char, and he knew that it would keep me amused while he helped the knights clear the path.

Near forty-five minutes passed when I came to the end of Ella's book. I would have turned to the front of the book to keep reading, but I knew if I read anymore I would be plain sick of it by the time we got going again, and then I would be faced with a dreadfully long boring trip. Also about this time, the knights were half done with their task and decided to take a break. Unfortunately for me, my brother seemed to have made friends with a certain knight with the name of Thomas.

"Cecilia," James said, striding over to me closely followed by Thomas, "May I have the pleasure of introducing Sir Thomas."

"Sir Thomas," I said with a polite curtsy. The last thing I wanted to happen was for my brother to find out about our previous tryst. Though James was chivalrous to ladies and all, he didn't see any need to refrain from teasing his sister.

Thomas raised an eyebrow at my acting as though we had never met, but went along with it and bowed curtly. "Princess Cecilia," he replied, with a short nod, almost as though _he_ was trying to dismiss _me_. That simply would not do.

"James," I said quickly, stepping to his side and grasping his arm, being sure to put my back to Thomas, blocking him out, "Could you tell me again how it was the Elves' won this forest back from the gnomes?"

I had panicked and couldn't think of any other questions. I knew James would see right through me, after all, I had barely listened the first time he told me, why would I want to waste my time again?

Apparently his thoughts were occupied by the project underway for he simply replied, "I can't right now, I must go speak with Sir Bert over matters which don'' concern you." he said. "But I'm sure Sir Thomas here could explain it to you, besides, he is just newly a knight, which means his is fresh out of his training and schooling, and would know more bout it then I would anyway." With this my brother smiled and left us, walking over to discuss 'matters that did not concern me' with Sir Bert. I made a mental note to kick him next time I got him alone.

"So, Princess Cecilia," Thomas said, taking my brother's place, and strolling along beside me, "I'll assume you could care less about the history of the Elves' and just wanted to get me out of the way?"

I carefully studied his face. Was he mad? Or just annoyed? I couldn't see any emotion in his face at all, not even his eyes told tales. "What makes you say that?" I questioned in reply, taking pains to scrutinize any emotion, but still, I found none. I concluded that he was mad, or he would have no reason to hide his emotions. Unless he really was nonchalant about the whole ordeal, but I dismissed that idea almost immediately. He would have simply started in on why the Elves' Ingenuity won out over the Dwarves' Power if he didn't care what my motives for asking James that question was.

"Elves' and Dwarves', milady?" He said, disbelief in his voice, he clearly thought me petty for such an attempt, "If you did not wish to have my company, you could have said so other wise." I did not think it wise to reply to such a comment.

"And speaking of which, " Thomas said, his cool, clear voice still retaining its original calmness, "Why don't you wish to have my company?"

This stopped me, why didn't I want his company? Simply because he was conceited I told myself. Another half of me replied, 'I was acting as rude as he was, and he didn't seem to notice or mind much.' 

Perhaps it was what our court astronomer would have said had he have known the situation, 'The paths of some stars meet and intertwine, and others simply collide most abruptly.' A simple explanation but that was promptly shot down by the fact that I had never once listened to the astronomer before. 

Something about Thomas simply tweaked my nose, and I couldn't stand it. Perhaps it was the fact that he seemed quite different then he had at the palace gates. 'Probably because he's just trying to get to become a knight,' I told myself, 'And doesn't want to tick off the King's sister, since the King is the one who decides who gets to become a knight.'

"Well?" Thomas asked, waiting rather impatiently for a reply.

"I-I-," I stuttered, what was I going to say? "I don't know what you are talking about." I mentally kicked myself. He would definitely see around that one.

"Cecilia, don't st-" he started, but I cut him off.

"Don't tell me to don't start," I told him, getting rather worked up, "I didn't ever say I didn't want your company, but I'm starting to think against that decision, because you start going off on some spiel of how I'm not being amiable to you!"

"Amiable," he started back at me, his voice growing louder as he spoke, "You cut me off when I was talking with your brother, you tried to ignore me, you come up with a bunch of lame excuse of why you are being so rude, and you call that amiable, I hardly consider that the least bit friendly."

About this time, I noticed that some of the other knights were looking at us rather strangely. I glanced at my brother, and he raised an eyebrow at me. It sort of prompted me to go back to my royal place. It wouldn't do well to embarrass the entire family over a childish dispute. Somehow, whenever a royal does something bad, it reflects upon the entire coterie, but when one of our subjects did something wrong, we were supposed to allow them to be distinguished from their family. My brother was simply reminding me of this.

My voice went balmy and pleasant again, "I apologize for any woe I caused you," I said, trying to be over-the-edge nice, just to put him in the fool's spot. He however simply went along with it, and smiled, the same smile that had infuriated me before.

"And I you." His syrupy sweet voice was making me mad. But I couldn't show it, of course.

"All's forgiven."

"You philanthropist, you."

"I try." Somehow, this conversation wasn't turning out how I had thought it would.

Thomas nodded curtly and walked off. I first I thought it extremely rude of him, but I quickly noticed other knights resuming their work and I sat back down upon the log. To appear as the conversation hadn't bothered me as it had, I opened the Ella's book. To my horror and delight a picture of Thomas popped up on the first page.

~$~$~$~$~

Near three hours later we had reached the Elves' Forest, and were preparing to lodge the night with them. It was nearing dusk, therefore all travel was deemed too perilous and chancy to continue. I had heard Ella's story of being captured by Ogres' after traveling through the area past the Elves', and agreed with my brother's decision to accept the hospitality offered to us.

"Lose our temper did we?" asked James, coming up behind me.

"Early?" I asked. Assuming that was what he meant, "He wasn't being a rose either."

"He's not expected to be," James replied, "He's not royal, and he's not a lady."

For all I cared, 'Ladies' could run around barefoot. "I know," I said sullenly. My brother simply grinned.

"By the way, some Elven-women cooked up some carrot and potato soup, you should try it. It's delicious." With that he walked away, in all likelihood to get more soup, and left me wondering about the day's events. 

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A/N Okay, I have a real good excuse to why it took me forever to update. My computer had a virus, and I couldn't even get on to type much less update…. Anyway, Thank for all your reviews! I did a short chapter because I only have about two hours to get every thing done, and this was all I could type in that amount of time…

Here we go…

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Christa~ Thank you so much for your review, it really made my day… Not many people bother to write such long reviews!

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Skritch417~Once again, such a long review!! Yea. Anyway, take the idea of using the knight…I believe you when you say you had the idea. Even if you didn't, it's kinda a broad range, and most likely not very similar to my story.

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Niki~ Yea!! Someone got that I was trying to make her annoying!

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Ali~ Hopefully you like this one as much!!!

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Echidne~ I think I will read that book…

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Nabz~ I am going to add more Ella. In about four chapters though. Why? Because I am going to have James, Cecilia and Thomas spend some time in Aythoria. (I have to introduce a new character…)

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Clearbrook~ Sorry for the delay…

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Che~ Thanks!

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Victoria Regina~ Thanks heaps!

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The Great and Wunnerful High Goddess~ Actually, I have had a little more time to write this then I said… ;) And peer pressure is why I finally put this out…Thanks for all the compliments too…

As always, please click that little button down there and REVIEW!!!!

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